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Texting While Driving -- Another Kind of Impairment

Texting While Driving -- Another Kind of Impairment. Texting While Driving Is Hazardous. Driving skill is measurably impaired by text-messaging. Writing text messages creates a significantly greater impairment than reading text messages, but both are harmful. Texting Drivers in the News.

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Texting While Driving -- Another Kind of Impairment

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  1. Texting While Driving --Another Kind of Impairment

  2. Texting While Driving Is Hazardous • Driving skill is measurably impaired by text-messaging. • Writing text messages creates a significantly greater impairment than reading text messages, but both are harmful Naval Safety Center

  3. Naval Safety Center

  4. Texting Drivers in the News • A 17-year-old texting driver in New York state swerved into oncoming traffic and hit a truck head-on, killing herself and her four passengers. • A texting California train engineer was involved in the collision near Los Angeles that killed 25 passengers and injured 130 others. • A 27-year-old Arkansas texting driver crashed his vehicle into another car, killing its driver (the Arkansas man was charged with negligent homicide, and had been also drinking a beer at the time). Naval Safety Center

  5. Texting Drivers in the News, cont. • An 18-year-old texting driver in Texas slammed full-speed into a stopped vehicle, sending a 3-year-old passenger in that vehicle to the ICU at a local hospital with a broken skull. • A 16-year-old texting driver in California lost control and dies in the ensuing crash (she was also speeding and had been drinking). Naval Safety Center

  6. What Studies Show About Texting • Driver inattention is involved in about 80 percent of crashes (NHTSA, 2006) • 46 percent of teenagers text while driving (AAA) • 91% of Americans think that it’s unsafe to text message while driving and that it’s just as bad as driving after a couple of drinks (Harris Poll, August 2007) Naval Safety Center

  7. What Studies Show About Cell Phones • Drivers talking on their cell phones were 18 percent slower braking than other motorists (University of Utah, 2005) • Talking on a cell phone while driving caused impairment on par with driving with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent (University of Utah) Naval Safety Center

  8. What a Recent Study Assessed • Impact of text messaging on driver performance • Attitudes and beliefs that surrounded the activity in the 17-25 age category • Study done by the Transport Research Laboratory in September 2008. Naval Safety Center

  9. How the Study Worked • Studied reaction times, car-following ability, lane control, and driver speed • Used a driving simulator • 8 male, 9 female participants between the ages of 17-24. • All described themselves as regular users of text messaging and used phones with standard key pads. Naval Safety Center

  10. The Test Drives • Participants took a 10-minute familiarization drive. Had to follow a lead vehicle at a safe distance. • On the next test drive, they had to read a text message, and compose and send a message. • The third drive was without distractions. Naval Safety Center

  11. What Texting Drivers Did Wrong While driving and texting, drivers: • failed to detect hazards, • responded to hazards more slowly, and • were exposed to risk for longer periods. Naval Safety Center

  12. Negative Affects • Less able to keep a constant distance behind lead vehicle • Large increases in variability of lane position • Many more lane departures • In actual traffic, these driving errors dramatically increase the likelihood of collision. Naval Safety Center

  13. Dangerously Slowed Reaction Times • Reaction times are slower when reading or writing a message. • Reaction time for drivers trying to compose a text message increased from 1.2 to 1.6 seconds. • At highway speeds, drivers can travel more than a mile while texting. Naval Safety Center

  14. Slowed Reaction Times, cont. • Slower reaction times result in an increased stopping distance of three car lengths. • Could easily make the difference between causing and avoiding an accident or between a fatal and non-fatal collision. Naval Safety Center

  15. What Causes This Impairment? • Increased mental workload required to write a text message • Less physical control caused by holding the phone • Visual impairment caused by continually looking back and forth from the phone display and the road ahead Naval Safety Center

  16. Worse than Drinking, Smoking Pot • Reaction-time impairment caused by texting while driving was apparently greater than that caused by: • drinking alcohol to the legal limit for driving • smoking pot • talking on a hands-free phone. • Compared to three earlier TRL studies Naval Safety Center

  17. Who Texts and Drives? • In 2008, 2,002 members of the social networking website Facebook were asked to self-report whether they text while driving. • 45% admitted doing so. Naval Safety Center

  18. Is Gender a Factor? • Impairment caused by texting was far more significant for female rather than male drivers. • However, male drivers are more likely to text and drive. • As a result, overall impairment across the sexes may be more equal. Naval Safety Center

  19. Solutions • Don’t get into the habit of texting and driving. • If you already do it, stop. Pull over if you have urgent business or an emergency. • Don’t ride with drivers who are texting. Tell them to stop. • Concentrate on traffic and other drivers while you are behind the wheel. Naval Safety Center

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